Lineth Chepkurui's Dominating Season on the U.S. Roads

She trains with men in Kenya over the winter

While most 22-year-olds are renting their first apartment, the better lodging investment for Lineth Chepkurui might be to buy a Winnebago. It would come in handy for as much of the U.S. as she's seen this year.

Month after month, "dominant" was an understatement for the Kenyan road ace: In 2010, for all but two races -- Falmouth, where a sick Chepkurui settled for second after being out-kicked, and Philadelphia, where she finished second to world track champion Meseret Defar -- the only thing her opponents have seen has been unanswerable move after move and the bottoms of her size-7 Nike racing flats.

Chepkurui has seen her own share of strange things this year. At San Francisco's Bay to Breakers, which she won en route to breaking her world-best 12K time, she remembers "spectators throwing tortillas on the course during the race."

Elsewhere, "People were running completely naked as they were born," she says.

Life wasn't always filled with naked runners and flying tortillas. Born in Bomet, Kenya, to retired schoolteachers, Chepkurui caught local coaches' attention after winning a meet in Iten. After refined training, in October 2005 Chepkurui debuted at the half marathon distance at the Standard Chartered Nairobi International Marathon, which she won in 1:13:55. Shortly after, she signed with KIMbia Athletics.

Winning the 2006 Philadelphia Distance Classic with a PR 1:10:09 at the age of 18, Chepkurui became a presence on the U.S. road racing circuit, and has remained so ever since. But all the time away from her home poses its own challenges.

"I miss my friends and home environment. There is more energy consumed [in travel], especially with flight delays," Chepkurui says. "Traveling from Kenya to USA is a long flight, too. The change of food, eating habits and the sudden change of climate," are all things Chepkurui adds to the list of difficulties. "But I do like and enjoy when I am in the USA."

Whether Chepkurui has finally mastered the art of living out of a suitcase or she has acclimated to her double life, never has she been as dominant as she has been in 2010.

After the world cross country championships in March, where she tipped her hand to her fitness with a fifth-place finish, Chepkurui holed up in Boulder, Colo., for a few weeks before the start of her road racing season. "There is not much difference with home [and Colorado]. It has almost the same altitude and we get food like we do in Kenya," she says. Then, it began.

First in New Orleans on April 3 for the Crescent City Classic where Chepkurui was the returning champion. In a solo run, she won by nearly 2 minutes. The following weekend, she ran a PR 51:51 at the Cherry Blossom 10 Mile in Washington, D.C.

Then Seattle for the world-record 12K time at the Lilac Bloomsday Run. Chepkurui went south to San Francisco in May, where she bettered her newly minted mark at Bay to Breakers by 3 seconds in 38:07. Then Atlanta in July and Maine in August, with only that show of vulnerability at the line in Massachusetts in mid-August.

After her August trifecta of races -- Beach to Beacon, Falmouth and the inaugural Run Gloucester 7-miler -- Chepkurui returned to Kenya for some much-needed rest before yet another transcontinental flight before the Philadelphia Half Marathon.

Chepkurui is an enigma in her country. Instead of an all-women group to train with near her quiet apartment on the outskirts of Iten, she meets up twice a week with the local men's group, first for their Tuesday speed work, and then for their Thursday fartlek. Her strategy is simple and unchanging: Latch onto a group and try to hold on.

"The advantage with men is that they are stronger and help push the pace," Chepkurui explains.

"I train with females too. Even now I have some friends and we train together," she says, "but mostly I like training with men."

If there may be any secret to Chepkurui's success, it is this: By training with athletes superior to yourself -- regardless of gender -- you must rise to the challenge or get dropped off the back. From Chepkurui's race results, you can tell she's not one to be dropped.

After her few weeks of recovery from her tour of the U.S., Chepkurui looks forward to the start of a new racing season, returning to the same place her season always does: world cross country. As she has in the past, she'll resume her training with the men. She's sure it'll lead to another season of wins on the road.